The problem is I was never able to come up with an optimal combination. You can spend 10 days training in "sword" and start out as an awesome fighter, do the same for magic, or try to achieve more of a balance of skills. It's one of the few early games in which the concept of "class" is more an assemblage of skills than a nominal category. I don't mind the character creation that much, aside from the lack of good documentation. You only have to take his training once, and that one training gives you 99 "lives." You'll need them.
A guy named "Hubris" improves the chances that you'll detect things like traps "Grieves" improves each NPC's starting disposition towards you, and "Jack" helps you jump better.įinally, YAMA gives you the ability to resurrect if you die. One gives you extra strength for carrying things, another improves your skills as a thief, and another improves your skills as a mage. Four different trainers focus on swords, spears, staves, and unarmed combat respectively. Thus, you basically have to waste a character just figuring out the different training options.
Each trainer teaches you a different thing, and you don't know what that is (the manual doesn't tell you) until after you've trained. Oh, there's some doggerel about a dark wizard named Caballus and the legendary Armour of Zob, but clearly the writers were planning to flesh out the game world in later installments.Ĭharacter creation begins with a name, after which the character has to spend 14 days training with 12 teachers, each session taking one day. Not even good pieces of armor: two sabatons (which cover the feet) and two greaves (which cover the legs). When you strip all that away, you have a one-level dungeon crawler that takes you through about 80 rooms on a quest to find four pieces of armor. You might have thought about focusing more on the game first. Swords & Sorcery is also one of the first games to come with an associated merchandising campaign, including t-shirts, posters, and "badges."
It would have said, "HEY, JACKASSES! IF YOU'RE DEVELOPING A GAME FOR A PERSONAL COMPUTER, AND YOU HAVE LESS THAN 26 COMMANDS, YOU DON'T NEED A COMPLICATED MENU SYSTEM!! JUST MAP EACH COMMAND TO A SENSIBLE KEY!!"
The employees of Personal Software Services will be able to confirm this if, one day in about 1984, while they were deep in development on Swords & Sorcery, the sound of an enraged male came booming into their offices. I have this fantasy that if I yell loud enough my voice can transcend time and space. Other key on the keyboard is used except when you're naming your 8 and 0 cycle through menus and sub-menus on theīottom of the screen and 9 selects which command or object you want.
Meanwhile, three fingers of your right hand remain Turns the character to the left, 3 turns him to the right, and 2 moves The idiotic interface has you keep three fingers of your left hand on the 1, 2, and 3 keys. It was going to be a while without a screenshot, so here's an image of an altar or table that I don't know what to do with. The messages that come and go on the screen seem to be random the dialogue with NPCs seems to have been written by an insane person items disappear from my inventory with no warning spells fail to cast commands don't do what they're supposed to do and at least once every 5 minutes, I find myself yelling, "Wha.WHY DID I JUST DIE?!" I can't make any sense out of what happens when I'm playing it. It's rare to have this experience with a 1985 game, but here I am with Swords & Sorcery. I might enjoy myself overall, but there are about 50,000 things I don't understand about the game mechanics, and apparently I shout a particular phrase so often that Irene insists she's going to have it inscribed on my real tombstone: "Wha.WHY DID I JUST DIE?!" This usually happens when I play some modern game like Dark Souls. Occasionally, I'm forced to confront the uncomfortable truth that between a Japanese teenager and a Brazilian tribesman who's never seen a computer before, I'm closer on the continuum to the tribesman.